restoration

The Hudson from New York Harbor north toward the Tappan Zee Bridge. BOP's role here is currently limited to post-installation monitoring support, with the river identified as a priority region for future large-scale restoration.

BOP supports the Hudson River Foundation in monitoring the 2018 restored reef at the Governor Mario M. Cuomo / Tappan Zee Bridge site (these oysters were not introduced by BOP). Populations in the Hudson near Tappan Zee may serve as a larval source for future restoration in the river and Western Long Island Sound.

An enclosed bay along the southern Brooklyn and Queens shoreline, sheltered by the Rockaway Peninsula and Gateway National Recreation Area. BOP monitors shell-mound and cabinet reefs at Head of Bay and Paerdegat Basin.

Head of Bay remains BOP's highest standing population in Jamaica Bay, sustained through reseeding of its shell-mound reefs, with positive growth and large shell sizes (>147 mm) — though no wild recruitment was recorded in 2025. Paerdegat Basin's cabinet reef has declined under high mortality; the cabinets will be removed and a new multi-phase reef is planned.

The outer harbor from the Narrows south to Sandy Hook and west into Raritan Bay, including Staten Island's south shore. Home to the Living Breakwaters, BOP's largest single oyster deployment.

In 2025 BOP seeded roughly 70M oysters directly onto the Living Breakwaters structures off Staten Island — the largest single deployment in program history. Early monitoring shows positive growth with low but consistent recruitment, and in-situ trials are underway to evaluate the performance and scalability of the approach.

The inner harbor between Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn waterfront, and the New Jersey shore. BOP's most concentrated cluster of monitoring sites, including the high-visibility Brooklyn Bridge Park reefs and the Bush Terminal Park lagoon field station.

Brooklyn Bridge Park maintained roughly 10.5M oysters across multiple structures in 2025 — one of the strongest survival records in the program — with wild recruitment observed. Bush Terminal Park's older cabinet structures continued to show very low survival, informing the design of a new 1.3-acre subtidal reef permitted for 2026.

The western reach of Long Island Sound, fringing the Bronx and Westchester shoreline across to the Queens and Nassau County coast. One of BOP's priority regions for scaling up restoration, anchored by the long-running Soundview Park reef and the newly installed SUNY Maritime College nursery.

Soundview Park sustained a large multi-cohort population (5.3–9.1M oysters in 2025) through periodic reseeding, and was again one of the few sites where wild recruitment was documented. Growth is positive but mortality remains high, and recruitment is not yet sufficient to offset it. The SUNY Maritime nursery, installed in 2025, is performing well in its first season.